The Loser of the Election is President Biden
For months the West anxiously watched the US presidential campaign. “Anxiously” because the world is in turmoil with the wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and Lebanon taking their toll, and there is a lack of leadership. The quality of the campaign, particularly Mr. Trump’s language, his distortion of facts, and the worries about political violence if he were to lose was disappointing.
In the end, in a polarized US, Mr. Trump emerged as the election winner, more than “with a small margin” as predicted. Is Vice President Kamala Harris the loser? Yes and no. Yes, because, on paper, she was her party’s presidential nominee. No, because she joined the race too late and never had the opportunity as Vice President to project herself as an emerging Democratic leader who could be the next resident of the White House. She only ran a 107-day presidential campaign, perhaps the shortest in US history.
President Biden, at the age of eighty-two, was determined to run for a second term. A growing number of past and present Democratic leaders, kindly at the beginning with praise for his services but strongly later, urged him to leave the race. Because they believed that his mental faculties would not meet the requirements of the highest office in the US for another four years. He fought them bitterly until he finally concluded that he had no other option than quitting. But that came too late.
Thus, on July 22, only 107 days before the election he bowed out and endorsed Vice President Harris to take on Mr. Trump, urging his party to unite behind her, making her the party’s instant favorite for nomination at the Democratic Party’s August Convention. And it seems that his latest remarks referring to Trump supporters as “garbage”, days before the election, gave the former President and his team something to make use of. Wisdom would have him declare reasonably earlier that he would be a single-term president and thus allow his party to find a new leader. Now not only Mr. Trump is back at the White House, but the Democratic Party is in disarray.
In his “Address to the Nation”, on November 7, President Biden said, “It’s been a historic presidency — not because I’m president — because what we’ve done, what you’ve done — a presidency for all Americans.” Strangely enough, his “historic presidency” was followed by a “historic victory” as many world leaders defined Mr. Trump’s return to the White House.
No one should be surprised if Mr. Biden is already telling his immediate entourage that the election result would have been different had he been allowed to run for a second term.
President Biden won the 2020 presidential election against Mr. Trump with 51.3 % of the popular vote against Mr. Trump’s 46.9 %. When he entered the race he was a well-known figure in US politics and had enjoyed more than the usual level of visibility of vice presidents. President Obama always presented him as a friend, an indispensable colleague. Their relationship always reflected camaraderie. Mr. Obama probably thought that vice presidency would be the last chapter of Mr. Biden’s political career.
Ms. Harris enjoyed none of that. She was not a known figure in US politics when nominated to run as the vice presidential candidate in the 2020 election. And she enjoyed none of the privileges accorded to Mr. Biden as Vice President. President Biden had chosen her knowing that a female running mate would appeal to US voters, but he kept her mostly in the shadows to ensure that his plans for running for a second term would not be challenged from within the White House. Yet, he felt no inhibition in declaring that choosing Ms. Harris as his running mate was the best decision of his career. But that was only on August 20, at the National Convention of the Democratic Party, and only two-and-a-half months before the election. Yet, Kamal Harris was too honest to distance herself from President Biden and tell the voters that her four years at the White House would be different than those of her predecessor.
In July, after she met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, “Israel has a right to defend itself and how it does so matters. What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating,” told reporters. “The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent,” Harris said. Thus, a CNN report on her remarks was titled “Harris steps out on Israel as she navigates Biden and Netanyahu”. Unfortunately, she was not allowed to continue under pressure from Mr. Biden and other Democratic leaders. She should have resisted them and continued with reasonable independence in foreign policy.
Regardless, Kamala Harris through a remarkably energetic campaign emerged from the shadows. Had she been elected, she would have been the first woman and the first person of South Asian descent to become US president. That would have made Americans proud of their democracy, and respect for women’s rights. She would have set an example for women worldwide, particularly in the Middle East. Unfortunately, she could not make it.
The US elections offer excellent lessons for Türkiye’s main opposition Republican People’s Party. It shows them that divisions in party leadership are a recipe for failure.
We know very well in the Middle East that an insatiable appetite for perpetual power and aversion to power sharing is a disease. Middle East leaders are marathon runners. With time they do not even run but walk. They hate to run in relay races where the runner finishing one leg passes on the baton to the next runner. They only enjoy waving nightsticks.[i] However, for the world’s number one power and democracy, and the future of democracy as well, President Biden’s unfortunate quest for a second term has proved a huge mistake.
Since his early days in US politics, President Biden was Türkiye’s number one enemy but Ankara cannot be overjoyed by his departure because President Trump had sent President Erdogan, the most undiplomatic letter of the past century. The bilateral agenda is a very long list of issues ranging from S-400s and Türkiye’s purchase of American fighter aircraft to conflicting policies in the Middle East, particularly in Syria. The overarching problem, however, is the lack of chemistry between Ankara, the top international supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the West and the Middle Eastern countries as well. Mr. Trump’s transactional approach to problems may appeal to Ankara but that has limits. Thus, no matter how some improvement in relations may be marketed, a genuine reset in Türkiye-US remains a chimera.
Yesterday, November 10, marked the 86th anniversary of Atatürk’s passing. Once again, hundreds of thousands visited his Mausoleum in Ankara. With our eternal love, respect, and gratitude he will live forever in the hearts and minds of the Turkish people.
[i] https://diplomaticopinion.com/2023/04/03/the-longest-serving/